


love is like a role that we play

by 9crimes



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Baby Fic, F/M, Future Fic, Pregnancy, canon compliant up to 2x08, loosely based on 'friends with kids'
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-03
Updated: 2015-02-01
Packaged: 2018-03-05 03:13:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3103439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/9crimes/pseuds/9crimes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Friends with Kids' AU-ish</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Clarke. please, I’m begging you, think about this - “ Clarke pursed her lips and turned her back to her mother, hopping on the exam table and placing her feet in the stirrups. She felt a pang of regret when she considered the advanced state of her mother’s medbay, the tools she had that Clarke could so desperately use, but she pushed those thoughts out of her head. She and Bellamy had built something good over the last few years. The things they lacked were not worth living under the old laws and rules the arkers had chosen to maintain on earth. They’d found a way to survive on what they had, just like they always did (always would).

 

“I have thought about it, mom. I’ve thought about everything. I’m not changing my decision, so can we please get on with this. I have responsibilities back at the village -"

 

“Responsibilities that you will no longer be able to take on within a few months if you do this!”

 

“Mother. If you don’t help me, I’ll find someone who will. The tribes we’ve made peace with have healers” Abby bristled at that, her eyes widening.

 

 “The grounders know _nothing_ of these matters, Clarke” she hissed.

****“Yes, I’m aware, and that is why I came to you first” Clarke tried to keep her voice steady. Not the easiest feat when her mother was invovled. “But if you won’t do what I ask, I will find another way”.

****They held eye contact for a few moments, until Abby let out a long suffering sigh and snapped on a pair of gloves.

 

 

 

 

Bellamy frowned as he looked over the crowd that had gathered to welcome the hunting party he’d just brought back. Usually Clarke’s blonde hair was the first thing he saw when he entered the gates, bobbing in and out of the various groups that formed, sniping at the hunters to stand still so she could look them over for injuries. Today though, she was nowhere to be found.

****After barking out a few orders to some younger boys standing around, he made his way to the medical center. It wasn’t much, but it was a far cry from when they first landed and used the drop ship. His first order of business on settling here had been to build Clarke a respectable place to do her work. It hadn’t turned out as he’d hoped, but he’d seen a tear on her cheek when it was finished. So he figured it was good enough for the time being.

 

“Griffin” he yelled as he pulled back the curtain that separated the waiting area and what essentially functioned as her office. “Now before you lecture me on safety again it looks worse than it is -” he came to a halt when he saw the dark haired girl sitting at Clarke’s desk.

****“O? What the hell - what are you doing here? Where’s Clarke?” Octavia looked surprised to see him for a split second, then rolled her eyes exaggeratedly.

“Nice to see you too, big brother. You’re back early….which is just perfect” she muttered the last part under her breath, which made Bellamy narrow his eyes and cross his arms over his chest.

“Ugh calm down...Clarke had something to do, so she asked me to take over in the clinic for her for the day”

“Come on, you walked half a day from your village so Clarke could, what, take the afternoon off?” Bellamy raised his eyebrows at her. “Where’s Clarke” It wasn’t a question, more a demand for information.

“Gathering herbs” Octavia said, lips tight in a fake smile. “or berries, or...whatever it is she’s out gathering” Bellamy scoffed at that and leaned his arms on the desk, bringing him closer to Octavia.

“Clarke hasn’t _gathered herbs_ in 2 years, little one. I would know, she’s always sending my goddamn men out to do it for her”. Octavia huffed and snapped out a _don’t call me little one_. Bellamy ruffled her hair in return, which started an impromptu wrestling match.

“Octavia" He warned as he swatted her off his injured shoulder "I’ll ask you one more time. Where is Clarke?”

 

 

 

 

Clarke groaned and hung her head when she passed through the gate and saw a few of the younger boys showing off their animal skins, presumably from their kills on the hunting trip. That meant Bellamy was back. She’d been hoping to beat him home, have some time to come up with how to approach the conversation they needed to have after her visit to her mother. Part of her knew that she should have talked to him before going to her mother, but, well what’s done is done and there was nothing she could do about it now.

Bellamy didn’t seem to be anywhere around, which was not usually his protocol just after a hunting trip. He would typically be hurrying the boys away from their crowds of admirers, making sure the meat was properly stored, and forcing them to bathe and let her check them for injuries.

He was looking for her, no doubt. She turned toward the medical center with a sigh and walked forward (she only dragged her feet a little bit).

The first thing she heard was Bellamy’s voice, demanding in his most threatening tone “Where. Is. Clarke?” and it was all she could do to keep herself from laughing out loud. Everyone knew by now that Bellamy was all bark no bite (especially when it came to his sister), but that didn’t stop him from pulling his tall dark and scary act at least once a day. She took a deep breath to sober up and put on her most calm and collected smile.

“Right behind you, actually”. He whirled around and fixed her with a withering glare. But he also checked her over, looking her up and down as if to make sure she was all in one piece. _it’s not like he’d be able to see what’s different about me, anwyay_ she thought wryly to herself. She shook off those thoughts, though, and crossed the room to greet Octavia with a hug.

“Thanks for coming Octavia, I really appreciate it”.

“Of course, you deserve a break every once in awhile” she sent a meaningful arch of the eyebrow to her brother, who hadn’t stopped scowling since Clarke had announced her presence in the room.

 

 

When Octavia was gone, Bellamy pushed off the desk he had been leaning on and walked towards her until he was very much in her space, big arms crossed over broad chest, shaggy hair falling over his forehead. He’d obviously not stopped in his quarters to wash up, he was still sporting the cargo pants she’d made him for hunting a few years back (basically just a regular pair of cargo pants, with multiple pockets sewn in for keeping extra knives. It’d seemed pretty basic to her, practical really, but he’d smiled so big and thanked her so sincerely it made her feel warm and a little...happy when she saw him wearing them). He also smelled like the woods, which was really not as pleasant a scent as she’d imagined it to be when she’d read the phrase in one of the romance books the girls in her year had smuggled from the library back on the Ark.

“Care to explain what that was all about?” Bellamy asked, feigning disinterest. His narrowed eyes searching her own proved how bad he was at that.

 

“Well just what she said, I needed a break. We arranged this a few weeks ago, actually, when she was here visiting with Lincoln” Clarke frowned when she noticed a red spot on the area of his bicep she’d been focusing on to avoid eye contact. “Hey” she grabbed his arm “you’re bleeding!”

Bellamy pulled his arm from her grasp “Nope, we are not changing the subject. It’s just a scratch, you can take care of it after we’re done. That’s bullshit, by the way, and even if it’s not why didn’t you tell me?”

Clarke crossed her arms over her chest, widened her stance a bit. “ I am the doctor here, Bellamy. This is my medical center. I’ll decide if it’s ‘just a scratch’. And I would have told you, but you were gone on that hunting trip. Now, give me your arm”.

“Once again, bullshit. You’ve known for weeks about this trip. Hell you’re the one who convinced me to take Martinez and Graham, who, by the way you can thank for this” He motioned to his bleeding shoulder. “Tell me where you were”

Clarke frowned and reached for his arm again “They need the experience. What happened? This looks deep, Bellamy”.

“ _For the love of_...ok if I sit here and let you poke at me will you please tell me where you’ve been?” Clarke paused, pretending to weigh her options. She couldn’t help the little laugh that escaped her mouth when he literally growled her name.

“Fine. First tell me how this happened. And take off this disgusting jacket” Bellamy began to shrug out of his jacket but Clarke stopped him “Hm, let me actually. I don’t want to irritate this shoulder anymore than necessary”. He cut his eyes at her and cleared his throat.

“Yea, whatever” She moved behind him to get a better angle, pulling it off him one arm at a time.

“Now talk”

“It was no big deal” She was taking off his t-shirt, and she’d touched him in so many completely platonic ways (patient/doctor, teacher/student, friend/friend, you get the idea) by now that he should have really mastered _not_ losing his cool when her fingers brush his bare skin. But, here he is, coughing to hide the sharp breath he takes and sitting on his hands to keep from touching her right back.

“Uh, Graham was being an idiot. He wasted his arrows in the first 4 hours of the hunt, didn’t hit a single thing. I put him on first watch, gave him my hatchet cause he was scared or some shit. I told you, he wasn’t ready to go out” Clarke frowned at that and motioned for him to keep going. She was cleaning the wound now, practiced fingers moving expertly and efficiently. He cleared his throat and yanked his eyes away from her fingers dancing on his skin. “Anyways, he uh, he got spooked when I came to relieve him when his watch was over, fuckin swung a hatchet at me”

“You got hit with your own hatchet”, She said dryly. Bellamy huffed, and Clarke couldn’t help the grin that pulled at her lips.

“Yea, I did. Like I tried telling you, Graham and Martinez are too green for hunting. They need at least 6 more months of target, maybe more”.

“Hmm. I still think giving them the experience is worth more than sticking them in a shooting range all day” He sighed, decided to leave that argument for another day. They had more important things to fight about.

“Well Griffin, you can thank them for you getting caught sneaking out”.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, I was not sneaking anywhere” He grinned wolfishly at her, knowing from her overly prim and polite tone that he had her.

“Yea. You were. You thought I’d be gone til tomorrow night. That was the original plan. Unfortunately I didn’t count on getting hit in the shoulder with my own goddamn hatchet, so we had to come home early. You had it allll planned out, didn’t ya? Leave after me, get back before me. I’d never know”.  

Clarke sighed and furrowed her brows, “Fine. I didn’t want to tell you I was going. I have just as much right to come and go as I please as anyone else does”. A few years ago this would have led to an all out brawl, could have lasted a few days. There would have been insults, sarcasm, and a lot of pretending to be unaffected while simultaneously losing entire nights of sleep stewing. That all seemed like a waste of time, now, though.

Instead, Bellamy drew in a breath and chose his words carefully.

“You do have that right. You know you do. But I’m not going to apologize for being worried about you. We’ve made good progress here, with the truces, but we can never be too sure. I just...look, I just want to make sure everyone’s taken care of, alright?”

“I know” Clarke whispered. He didn’t respond to that, just nodded his head.

They sat in silence for a few moments as Clarke dressed his wound. When she was finished she sat beside him on the desk he had perched himself on.

“I went to see my mother”

Bellamy whipped his head towards her, clenched his jaw as he searched her face. He looked like he wanted to say something, a lot of somethings actually, but he just waited for her to continue.

“I needed her...help with something”.

“Hey” He lifted his hand to her face and turned her towards him. His fingers were rough and calloused from a million different things; chopping wood, constructing the building they were sitting in, hunting their food, _keeping them alive._ She trusted him with her life. She trusted him with the lives of everyone she cared about. She trusted him to not completely freak out on her when she told him what she’d done, and what she planned to do now.

“You’re not sick? You’d tell me - “

“Of course. Bellamy, of course”. She laid her hand on his and looked into his eyes., giving him an encouraging smile “It’s nothing like that”.

“Look I’m trying really hard not to be an asshole here. Just...tell me. Whatever it is, say it”.

Clarke took a breath and pulled her shoulders back, lifted her chin a bit, and kept looking straight into his eyes.

 **  
**“I had my mother remove my implant”.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I established a timeline in this chapter, so in case anyone's confused this story takes place 5 years after they landed on earth. They stayed with Camp Jaha for 2 years, then Clarke and Bellamy led a group including the 48 who were rescued from Mt. Weather to start their own clan. Let me know if you're confused or have any questions about this! I have all sorts of headcanons for this universe...

Bellamy sometimes got this feeling, like something’s about to happen that will change everything, change his entire life, and there’s nothing he can do about it, nothing he can do but savor the last moments of his life as he knows it. He had it a few days before his mother had Octavia, the moment the alarm went off at the masquerade party, the seconds before he pulled a gun on the chancellor, watching Clarke walk out the gate to meet Lexa the night Finn died, the last council meeting he and Clarke attended at Camp Jaha when they announced their plans to start a new settlement...and right now.

He stared at Clarke. She stared right back at him, eyes glittering with defiance and lips set in a determined line. _I had my mother remove my implant._

“Birth control implant?” He sputtered, to which Clarke sighed loudly and rolled her eyes.

“Of course, Bellamy, what other implants do I have that my mother could remove”

“Excuse the fuck outta me if I’m a little bit blindsided by this” he barked and ran a hand over his face and through his hair, pushing off the desk they were seated on and beginning to pace around the room. “I didn’t even know you were seeing anyone”.

Clarke closed her eyes and bit her lip, replaying the script she had written in her head. She’d have to present her case well if she expected Bellamy to agree to what she had planned. She’d have to convince him she was sure, 100% sure, otherwise he’d see right through her. Not that she was unsure exactly, just...not as sure as she needed to be for Bellamy to be ok with what she was going to propose.

She took a deep breath.

“I’m not. Seeing anyone, I mean”

Bellamy tried not to think too hard about the wave of relief that fell over him at that. She hadn’t been with anyone since Finn, but he knew it was coming. He’d been telling himself for years that he needed to get a hold of this...whatever it was he felt for her, before that happened. He shook his head a bit and pushed his hair back, his mind going a million different places as to where Clarke was going with all this.

“Doc you’re gonna have to spell it out for me, I’m -”

“I’m trying!” Clarke exclaimed, “Can you just - stop pacing for 5 minutes, you know I can’t think straight when you do that. Just sit” she gestured to the chair behind the desk she was currently sitting on. When he ambled over and collapsed into the chair with a heavy sigh she spun herself around to face him, still sitting on her desk with her legs crossed. Bellamy had built that desk for her, and he couldn’t help the sense of pride that washed over him every time he saw her sitting at it, or in this case, sitting on it.

“Alright. Hit me” He leaned back in his chair and opened his arms wide, causing a smile to sneak its way onto Clarke’s face, despite the fact that her heart was in her stomach.

“Lena and Rowan have been married for a while now” she said carefully, anticipating Bellamy’s scowl before it even happened. Lena was one of the younger girls, only 14 when the dropship landed on earth. When they had rescued the 48 from Mt. Weather, Bellamy had carried her out on his bruised and bloodied back. Ever since then, Bellamy made it his business to make sure she was taken care of. Needless to say he’d been more than a little wary of Rowan, a 22 year old former delinquent. When Lena had bounded into his tent about a year ago chattering about the little shit asking her to marry him, he’d been furious. Who the hell did this guy think he was, and how did Bellamy know he could trust him? But he’d forced a smile, teeth and everything, and pulled the girl into his arms, cradling her head to hide his frown the same way he had when Octavia had told him she was joining Lincoln’s clan. He accepted it eventually, after a late night conversation with Clarke (which only involved a little bit of yelling), and when he saw the smile on Lena’s face at the ceremony a few days later, he knew he didn’t have a leg to stand on. Still. Didn’t mean he had to like it.

“I wouldn’t say _a while._ It’s only been a year” He grumbled. Clarke rolled her eyes but couldn’t help the small grin that pulled at her lips. A memory of hearing some of the boys complaining about what a ‘dad’ he was flickered through her mind, sobering her up and bringing a flash of heat to her face.

She cleared her throat.

“Regardless. Lena came to me a few weeks ago. She and Rowan want...well, they want to have a baby”.

Bellamy didn’t react, just kept sitting, His eyes were wild though, and his jaw was clenching as hard as she’d ever seen it, which she knew was worse than if he was ranting and pounding his fists on extremely fragile furniture.

When he spoke, his voice was low and his eyes were looking down at his fists.

“She’s 19 years old” Clarke just nodded, remembering the sick feeling in her stomach when Lena had told her.

“We’re not prepared for...no. The answer is no. Swear to Christ, Clarke, you better have told her no - wait” He stood then and grabbed her by the shoulders. She could tell by the way his eyes searched hers that he was putting the pieces together.

“What the hell does this have to do with you getting your mom to remove your birth control implant?” Clarke closed her eyes and let out a quiet laugh. She should have known. She should have known better than to try to keep anything from Bellamy, even for just a few minutes as she attempted to find a way to say the things she needed to say to him. When she opened her eyes she looked straight into his, taking one of his hands off her shoulder and holding it between both of hers.

“I did, I did, I said no. You’re right, we’re not prepared for this. But we need...we need to be, Bellamy. We need to start thinking of the future, the next generation. They’re all getting older -”

“Fuck Not old enough! No, it’s too soon. We’ll wait, a few more years at least”. He was nodding to himself, as if he had made some sort of decision. Clarke understood, she really did. They’d had several conversations with healers from various clans, and the truth was childbirth on the ground was a risk, even for those who had lived here a hundred years. It was scary, overwhelming, and she couldn’t deny being a little terrified. But she knew what had to be done, what she wanted to do. She let go of his hand and lifted her hands to his face, resting them on his stubbled cheeks, scarred and dirty and weathered.

“Listen to me, Bell. I need you to let me say this. I’m going to tell you something, as your co-leader and your partner, and I need you to treat me like your co-leader and partner right now. Ok?”

One of her fingers was on his pulse and she felt it beating rapidly, despite the way the muscles in his face and jaw had relaxed as soon as she’d touched him. He stared at her for more than a few seconds before giving her a sharp nod. She slowly removed her hands from his face, pushing him backwards so she could move around him, suddenly feeling stifled by the heat of his big body so close to her. He’d been muscular when they’d first landed, of course, but the last 5 years had included hard labor and lots of it. He was...it was just a little overwhelming when he was so close, that’s all. And she needed all her wits about her if she was going to get through this.

“Clarke” His voice interrupted her thoughts. She was leaning against the wall behind her desk now, and he was standing behind it with his fists clenched at his sides. “Say it”.

She took a deep breath.

“I told Lena no, at first” she held up a hand to silence him when he opened his mouth at that.

“A few days later I went to see her again, and I asked if she would wait a year or so. I need to learn more about obstetrics, hell I needed to learn how to remove the implants. I haven’t trained in this, but I need to. That’s part of why I went to my mother. I brought back some books, and she was able to show me the best way to remove the implants”.

“And what’s the other part” he asked in a tone that made her think he knew exactly what the other part was.

“The other part is...I’m not comfortable with Lena being the first pregnancy. I’m not comfortable with any of them being the first, actually. So I’ve decided...I think it would be the best choice, for the entire clan, if I was the first”.

Bellamy didn’t yell. He didn’t scoff at her. He didn’t forbid her from doing it, didn’t curse.

He laughed. He doubled over, reaching his arm out to hold on to the desk for balance, and laughed harder than she’d ever heard him. She wasn’t quite sure what reaction she’d been expecting, but she hadn’t really considered _this._

“Bellamy - “

“Don’t” He spat out harshly, his demeanor changing in a split second.

“I should have talked to you about this before, but I -”

“You’re fucking crazy, you know that? Fucking...insane. Jesus” He chuckled to himself again.

“We need to talk about this” Clarke said firmly. She’d lost control of this, which was exactly what she knew would happen if she didn’t stick to her plan. But she had to gain it back, she had to make Bellamy understand…

“No. No we don’t. I need to get out of here, and you need to...who knows. You do whatever the hell you want, I should have known that by now”. He moved to walk out of the room but Clarke caught him by the forearm, her small hand digging in to corded muscles and bronze skin.

“Bellamy, don’t. This is not how this was supposed to go - “ He spun around and shook her off him.

“How exactly was this supposed to go, Griffin? You march in here, tell me you’re gonna get knocked up by some guy _for the good of the clan_? Best case scenario, you and the baby make it through the pregnancy and we have another mouth to feed, a fucking baby who’d be lucky to be strong enough to make it a year. Worst case, you die. What was my role in your little plan, Clarke, huh? Lie down and take it, no questions asked?” Clarke shook her head and pressed her fists to her eyes.

“No, no! Of course not! God, you can’t think that’s how I see you, how I see us!” Something in his face changed, and he cleared his throat. His eyes were dark as she’d ever seen them and for a minute she thought he was going to stay, thought he would stay and they could talk this through and make him understand why she had to do this why _they_ had to -

“It wouldn’t be some random guy” her rational and thought out speech had been shot to hell, so fuck it. Might as well get to the point.

She winced as she saw on his face the exact moment the realization of what she was saying hit him.

“Me” he said simply.

“I was going to ask you, I’ve been wanting to talk to you about it for so long but...if you’d just let me explain, Bellamy”. She reached out for him on instinct. They’d become much more physical in the 3 years since they’d left Camp Jaha to start their own clan, but she didn’t realize how much she depended on their small intimacies until moments like this where she was denied them. Now, as he moved away from her, not allowing her to comfort him or seek comfort from him, it hit her like a ton of bricks.

 _“Stop it._ Stop trying to convince yourself that this is something I would have ever agreed to if you hadn’t gone behind my fucking back”. She opened her mouth to protest but there was no point. He was right. Absolutely, devastatingly, right. She’d manipulated him. She felt sick to her stomach, nauseous under the weight of what she’d done, the damage she’d caused to her relationship with Bellamy in just a few minutes, a few selfish decisions. She felt frozen in time, Bellamy’s words playing over and over in her head. He was saying something now but she couldn’t seem to silence the echo of his previous words.

_Need some time...don’t look for me, I’ll come find you...sorry._

And then he was gone.

Clarke made her way to her office chair, where Bellamy’s overwhelming presence had been just minutes before, and sat down. It still smelled like him, like the woods and his sweat. She folded her arms on her desk, letting her head fall in between them, and for the first time since she’d said goodbye to her mother 3 years ago, she cried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i'm really into the more...dysfunctional side of bellarke's relationship right now. clearly. super fun stuff :) :) :) :)


End file.
